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A 5 star review?

The other day, we were chatting with our neighbor when she mentioned that she had seen my husband’s name come up on an online parenting forum. Apparently someone was looking for a doctor, and posted a thread to see if anyone had heard of him.

So as any dutiful wife would do, I got online, searched the forum, and found the discussion thread. Of course, there was nothing negative written about my husband on the forum, but I couldn’t help feel slightly disturbed by the fact that there are complete strangers talking about my husband’s professional capabilities. Yes, I know that on these websites, everything does have to be taken with a grain of salt, but it doesn’t change the fact that potentially there are people who will read the comments about my husband and form quick biases based on a few sentences posted by another stranger.

A similar situation occurred when I recently realized that there are people post reviews of their physicians on Yelp. It’s strange to think that as a physician, I can be rated as “1 star” for running 20 minutes late for an appointment, or “5 stars” because I fill prescriptions for antibiotics very quickly. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I think that the people who write reviews tend to be the ones who are the most outspoken and feel strongly about their positive or negative experience. I think it’s safe to say that most people aren’t rushing home after their doctor’s appointments to write yelp reviews.

What do you think, is it fair to compare and review a physician on Yelp (or other online forum), in the same way that one would review a restaurant or hair salon? And if you were to read something about someone you knew, how would you deal with it?

By the way, I did offer to write an anonymous glowing review for my husband, but he turned me down.